The California Regionals are all wrapped up and the coach we are presenting in today's show is responsible for getting 30 athletes there. If there is a powerhouse coach in CrossFit®, CJ Martin of CrossFit Invictus is it.

In this episode, we dive into the mind of one of the best coaches in the sport of CrossFit and discuss the process CJ goes through to groom his athletes, the importance of sticking to a training program and the role of strength in the sport of CrossFit.

With the road to the CrossFit Games becoming increasingly more demanding, athletes are pushing their physical and mental boundaries further than ever before. As a result of this increasing demand, successful athletes must possess a strong mindset and it's just as important as being “fit enough”. Along with how he's training athletes to get to the Games physically, in this episode, CJ shares with us how he builds mental fortitude within his athletes and what it is like to deal with the pressure of being a competitive athlete in the sport of CrossFit.

Whether you aspire to compete at Regionals or the Games one day or you're just looking for some valuable insight to improve your competitive, athletic mindset, this episode is a must listen.

Our guest this week is as humble as he is accomplished. You can tell as soon as you walk into his facility, which just so happens to be one of the oldest weightlifting gyms in the country, that you are stepping into a historic place.

We are taking about Sean Waxman. Sean has been a coach and athlete in the sport of weightlifting before it was even popular in the US. He has been a player in growing the sport to where it is today and has trained with and coached some of the best athletes in the sport.

In this week’s episode, we dive into what Sean is doing to create elite-level weightlifters, his coaching and leadership style, and the history of the sport of weightlifting.

If I were to tell you that using a BOSU® ball would help you squat more, would you believe us? Yes, we are talking about that half dome stability ball thing that sits in the corner at the globo gyms of the world.

Before you write off the BOSU® ball to the same category as the Shake Weight, you need to watch this episode. In this edition of Shrugged, we interview the inventor of the BOSU, David Weck, and it turns out there is more to this tool than meets the eye. David has dedicated his career to understanding biomechanics and how to help athletes move better. While his tools and methods are certainly unique, they are also every effective.

In this episode we dive into all the experiments and practices David has explored and how he is helping professional athletes with his method. You'll probably learn some things you have never heard before and you get to see Doug bitch slap him in the face. Multiple times.

With all the sleep apps, heart rate monitors, supplements, air conditioners, coffee (and more coffee) we use, it's evident we live in an optimized world, and it is making us weak.

In episode 259, we are bringing Brian Mckenzie and Andy Galpin back to talk about the research they are doing around performance, and what it means to be a resilient human in a comfortable world.

Never before have we had it so easy, and although we are training and optimizing our diet, our comfy lifestyle is holding us back from being as strong as we could be. It is one thing to have a training routine, but as soon as we go back to our air conditioned rooms and perfectly organized lifestyle, we lose the ability to adapt to the stress that our body has evolved to feel.

Brian and Andy have co authored a book called Unplugged, and in it they have put in the work and laid out the practices we can adopt (and the one’s we need to abandon) if we want to create a resilient body and mind.

When was the last time you did a conditioning piece that you actually enjoyed? Chances are (unless you did track in high school) you don’t find long spouts on the air dyne or rower all too fun.

Neither do we, so when we met Aaron Guyett and got to talking about battle ropes, and all the practical applications they have when it comes to conditioning, we decided he needed to be on the show.

Aaron is the master instructor for Onnit Academy’s battle rope program, and runs a facility in CA called Innovative results. We met up with him at his facility to talk about how you can use battle ropes in your conditioning workouts.

When it comes to using battle ropes, most of us just know one or two exercises that we saw on Instagram. In this episode, Aaron dives into all the different movement patterns and practical applications that battle ropes have including grip strength, power, and the ability to train all 3 metabolic pathways.

Tune in for this one and make sure to catch the break where Aaron does a hands on demo with the battle ropes.